About Isabel Page

Lady Isabel Page was born 1595 in Allington Castle, Boxley, County Kent, to Sir George Wyatt and Lady Jane Finch. She had at least these siblings: Francis 1583; Elinor 1584; George 1587; Haute 1594; and Henry 1596.

She came to Virginia with her brother Sir Francis Wyatt, who arrived as the new governor of the colony a few weeks before the massacre of 1622. She married Francis Page ca 1622 in Virginia. Some of their children were born in Virginia and some in England, so apparently they traveled between the colony and England regularly. Their primary residence in Virginia was at Middle Plantation (fortified by 1634; Williamsburg by 1700); in England, they lived at Bedfont, in Harrow on the Hill (now near Harrow School, Wembley Stadium), where the Pages were principal landowners for several generations. Her husband is often confused with his grandson Captain Francis Page. Their children included: Francis ca 1622, Matthew ca 1624, Elizabeth 1625, John 1628, Robert 1635, Gibbs 1637, and Ince 1639.

Isabel's brother Sir Francis Wyatt was governor of Virginia twice in the 1620s and once more in the 1640s. The first term was for the Company, the second and third for the Crown. The constitution he brought with him in 1621 provided English rights to the colonists and was the seed of the American Revolution in the eighteenth century. Another brother, the Reverend Hawte Wyatt, is the ancestor of the distinguished Wyatt family of Virginia.

Isabel's date of death is unknown, but it cannot have been before 1639, when her last child was born. Her husband is buried at Bedfont in England. The 1655 date above is a reference point of when she would have been 60. Her mother died age 84 in 1644 and her at age 73. On the other hand, her brothers Francis and Hawte died at 61 and 45, respectively.

Her father, Sir George, died in Ireland in 1623. Sir George's body was sent home and buried in Boxley in 1624. Her brother Sir Francis resigned the governorship and returned to England, so that he could assume his inheritance of Boxley. Haute returned to England with him and remained there. It is likely that Isabel and her husband also returned then, since her daughter Eliizabeth was born in England in 1625.

Isabel's grandparents were Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger and Lady Jane Hawte. The rebellion against Mary Tudor over the Spanish marriage bears his name. Wyatt lost his property and his head, on the Tower green on 11 April 1554. The rebellion had four leaders, but only the Kent contingent showed up ready to participate.Thomas Digges the inventor, Isabel's son-in-law Edward Digges's grandfather, was also condemned for this rebellion, but his sentence was commuted and he only lost his property. He died soon anyway, in 1559. Both of their sons got the property back.

Isabel's great-grandparents were Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder, the Tudor poet, who is credited with introducing the sonnet to English literature, and Lady Elizabeth Brooke. Sir Thomas almost lost his head because of a poem he wrote about Anne Boelyn, with whom he was smitten. Sir Thomas and Lady Elizabeth had only the one child, Thomas the younger, and he spent most of their arranged marriage trying to get a divorce. This became a moot point in 1542.